WORMS OF THE HELL

   What a horrible nightmare! Little was left to give me a heart attack ...! I rose, sweating, trembling; I immediately knelt down to pray ... I dreamed that I attended, along with many other inhabitants of the great city, a heavenly trial in which a being in shining clothing, surrounded by many angels, was the Judge. I was able to recognize that He was the One who was, as two thousand years ago, tortured and crucified in Jerusalem in a voluntary sacrifice for the whole Humanity.

  

   Each of the people present stood before this venerable Being to receive approval or disapproval for their good or bad deeds done during their lives on Earth. When it was my turn, in the midst of the expectation of that crowd, this Judge addressed me, and unreservedly said to me: "Stand aside, I have nothing with you, doer of wickedness!" I felt as if the world were sinking under my feet, How terrible! I woke up terrified! During the month following this creepy dream I thought a lot about my behavior as a Christian.

  

   I am a baptized believer who regularly attends the temple, I pray, I read the Bible and I believe I fulfill all my ecclesiastical duties. I do not smoke, I do not get drunk, I do not fornicate, I do not ... and all the others do not. What's more, I exercise leadership where I congregate. So if that bad dream was a warning to me to correct something, what would that something be? I did a lot of meditation, until I thought I had found the answer.

  

   I have come to the conviction that God not only wants us NOT to do evil, but He wants us to DO GOOD that is within our reach. That while justice says that we do not do to others what we do not want for us, the love of God, which was poured out in our hearts, goes beyond that justice, saying that we do to others what we want for us. Failure to do so may produce in us such remorse as to be felt to be being eaten by the worms of hell (Mark 9:44).

  

   Christian spiritual love is much more than hugs, shallow prayers and good intentions. The Bible says, "So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, and especially to the family of the faith" (Galatians 6: 10). And boy, do we have opportunities! For, like the Apostle Paul, we can appeal to our rights of citizenship (Acts 22: 25-29) to claim the state (for which we pay taxes) the defense of our life, honor, property and other rights, as Well says the Constitution of this country.

  

   Christians are also part of the community of inhabitants of this country and if, as such, they organize themselves in pursuit of the common good, they will be able to receive from the state government sufficient economic resources for their purposes, without anyone having to divert them from ethical principles for those who biblically orient their lives.

  

   Then, as responsible Christians that someday we have to account for the talents that the Savior gave us to participate in His Work, we must know and make known these rights that assist us, to achieve, at least in part, to have abundant life That Jesus Christ wants for us, because "... to him who knows how to do good, and does not do it, is sin to him" (James 4:17).